


Stay Golden, Pony Boy

by Saul



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, Haunted or Serial Killer: Which Would You Prefer, M/M, The Foxes Prefer Neither
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-30 03:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8517535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: “Of course Neil and Andrew would be the ones to wander off in the sketchy, empty motel,” Allison muttered.( in which the foxes' bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and the help they find would rather they not leave. )





	

**Author's Note:**

> **warning** for implied character death and depictions of gore. this is intended as a **horror story**. please read at your own discretion.

“Where’s Neil?”

Allison, cut off mid-sentence on the annoyances of bad service, turned to Matt. The rest of the Foxes, damp and huddled in the lobby of a dim motel, turned along with her.

Out loud, Wymack counted off his players. He got to eight, paused, and, very carefully, said, “Shit.”

Dan repeated, “Eight?”

Nicky glanced to his side, his other side, and then Kevin’s. “Andrew?”

“Not here,” the Minyard at Kevin’s side confirmed.

“Alright,” Wymack clapped his hands together, re-focusing their attention, “That’s it. Dan, you’re with me. Everyone else, stay here. If a staff finally shows up, ask for a working landline and call the university for bus service numbers. The motel wasn’t that large, they can’t be too lost.”

Dan hopped to it. Annoyance doing a poor job at covering his concern, Wymack picked the leftmost hallway and started down it. Within seconds, they turned a corner and disappeared from view.

“Of course Neil and Andrew would be the ones to wander off in the sketchy, empty motel,” Allison muttered.

Matt added, “This place definitely has a serial killer vibe. Or a drug haven.”

“The vacancy sign worked, and the front door’s open.”

“Yeah. Edgar Alan’s Exy team advertised vacancy, too. Doesn’t mean shit, Hemmick.”

Kevin matched Nicky’s rolled eyes with a scowl.

Small pockets of conversation broke up the wait. Cell phones continued to show no bars, but the time ticked by slow second by slow second. A minute turned into five, Allison hit the bell on the front desk once for every minute, Renee pulled her back, and time ticked by.

There were no other sounds in the motel. No shuffle of housekeeping, no off-on bickering between siblings shoved in too small of a space for too long. Nothing. Matt tried not to let it get to him.

He succeeded, much like his teammates, until it hit the twenty minute mark and Wymack, Dan, Neil and Andrew continued to be missing.

Allison rang the front desk’s bell again. Renee proposed, “We could look for them.”

“I think,” Nicky muttered, “I’d rather stay in the bus.”

By the look on seven Foxes’ faces, they agreed.

 _Then_ was the first sound beyond their group: a knock on the door.

It was so out of place and so sudden, Nicky took five steps toward it before realizing there was no reason for him to answer a motel’s door. The moment the realization hit him, he stopped dead in his tracks. The Foxes shuffled closer to him, but with highly suspicious stares toward the door.

“Okay,” Matt muttered, “that’s weird.”

Whoever stood on the other side rapped twice more on the door.

A pause.

Four more. Louder.

A smaller pause.

And full-on pounding, the sort a person in desperation might in their last moments.

“Okay,” Matt breathed, “that’s creepy.”

“It’s unlocked! Jesus!” Allison yelled. Kevin and Aaron both cursed her; Renee, again, snatched her arm.

The pounding, at least, stopped, Aaron’s second curse dropping at its end. Silence, when it returned, fell heavy as cement around their feet.

The Foxes held their collective breath.

Outside, it was dark. They had been on the last four hours of a sixteen hour bus ride when the bus had broken down. There was no clouds or moon in the sky - the road they’d traveled had been in the country enough to showcase stars, but in the dim motel lobby’s light, the world outside the windows looked no more friendly than the yawning mouth of a cavern.

Thanks to the dim motel lobby’s lights, the figure that brushed by the window was outlined enough to make the Foxes freeze. A dark coat, dark hair, hunched back – it ran by, and Nicky, voice high, declared, “That’s it! We’re looking for Coach and Andrew and the rest and we’re sleeping in the bus.”

The vote was unanimous and unvoiced. All Foxes turned to the hallway Wymack had picked, and made their way in a too-close cluster down it.

Allison told Renee and Matt (voice loud, voice forcibly boisterous, as if not a thing could touch her) about possibilities of finding Dan exasperated and ready to wring Neil’s neck for disappearing to mack on his _guy_ in the middle of a creepy-ass motel. Although they all knew neither Neil nor Andrew would do such a thing, they did their best to laugh at the image.

“Think Wymack would lecture them?”

“Hell no. Wymack would rather pretend we’ve sworn to wait until we’re out of his life.”

“Guys,” Aaron hissed - he was at the front of the group, Nicky and Kevin one step behind him and two steps ahead of the upperclassmen -, “shut up. Do you hear that?”

“No,” Kevin replied on reflex, got shushed, _shushed_ , and listened.

Knocking.

Faint compared to the episode they’d witnessed in the lobby. Loud enough to be not too many doors away.

They glanced at each other. Matt checked behind them.

No one moved.

There were still no other sounds to be found. Not one arguing couple, not one late-night television spewing an old game show.

It didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel right.

But they were three teammates and one coach short of their usual number, and they couldn’t leave without them.

(Plus, there was some freak running circles around the motel. He couldn’t have gotten into a room without them noticing, could he? How many entrances were there? Were they all unlocked?)

Aaron finally shot Nicky a glare, as if the knocking was _his fault_ , and stomped forward to find the door. The Foxes, not to be separated again, hastened to follow.

It turned out to only be three doors down. Rather than try the knob, Aaron hesitated, bit his lip, glanced at the expectant looks of his teammates, and called, “Yeah? Who are you? What do you want?”

The door opened faster than they could draw their next breath. A hand zipped out, snagged Aaron’s collar, and dragged him in.

The Foxes fell into chaos.

Renee was the first to bolt forward, her hands just managing to snag Aaron’s shirt and pull him back. Allison, Kevin and Nicky yelped and yelled; Matt backed up a step, everything in him ready to run.

The person who had grabbed Aaron snarled, “Shut up! Get in!” and, to everyone’s befuddlement, they realized they recognized that voice.

“Andrew, _what the fuck,_ ” Aaron demanded at a pitch one decibel from a scream.

“Shut up,” his twin repeated, the whites of his eyes uncharacteristically emboldened, “ _and get in._ Check behind you.”

Something about his tone made them follow his directions. Renee came in last with a final sweep of the empty hall, her jaw tight and shoulders rigid.

He shut the door, bolted it, and shoved a rickety wooden chair under its knob. The curtains were drawn, the only light coming from the bathroom.

The room was a single not meant to hold four, let alone eight, people. Matt and Kevin had to shuffle into the tiny bathroom - which would have been fine, except they found someone else there.

This person, they recognized by sight alone. Blood crusted around his nose and mouth wasn’t a new sight; his eye had been in the process of swelling shut before; his clothes had always been tattered.

The difference here was that the blood still glistened, the tatters came from ripping strips to press to wounds, and Neil’s one good eye looked at them with confusion, not recognition. Andrew had set him in the bathtub, though it was far too short for him to fit comfortably. They had seen Neil look like he wasn’t meant to survive before – this time came close.

Kevin froze at the doorway. Matt froze, unfroze, and dropped to the bathtub’s rim.

“Neil?”

Neil’s head turned to better look at Matt. His throat worked, his noise questioning, but he managed no coherent words.

“Back off.”

Matt stood, hands up. Andrew once-overed Kevin and, without care, pushed by Matt to the tub’s edge.

You didn’t argue with an Andrew Minyard using that tone of voice.

Allison came with more steel in her spine, and disagreed. “What is going on? Why is Neil bleeding out in a tub?”

“He’ll be alright,” Andrew replied, curt.

It didn’t look like it. The Foxes crowded for a view, concern and fear and a tinsy bit of panic racing across their group.

“Andrew–”

“I won’t repeat myself,” he informed his cousin, his calm deadly. Nicky wisely stayed at the door.

“Where’s Dan?”

Andrew looked at Matt, his expression blank.

Allison, again, jumped in. “Answer our questions, asshole. _Why_ is Neil bleeding in a tub? _Where_ is Dan and Wymack?”

“You’re panicking.”

“Damn right I’m panicking! We see this freak outside–”

“He jumped us.” Allison cut herself off, her eyes wide and fists clenched. Andrew seemed to work hard to force the words out, his gaze glued exclusively to Aaron. “On the way in. He knocked me out. When I came to, Neil was picking the lock to this room and told me as much as he could. It wasn’t much.”

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Renee murmured.

Andrew shifted his eyes to her, and then to Neil.

In a tone of utter detachment, he reported: “He stopped being coherent two minutes ago. Whoever jumped us has at the least a knife.”

“Holy fuck,” someone breathed.

All agreed.

“We can’t just sit here,” Nicky protested, the silence adding to their tensions. “We have to– get out. Somehow. He needs medical attention. We need to find Coach and Dan.”

“Hush,” Renee said, and everyone immediately did.

It took a moment to hear, but the sound reached them eventually.

Knocking.

“Oh, no,” Nicky blathered, voice quiet but high pitched. “Oh, no, we’re not doing that again.”

It sounded far away. That did nothing for their nerves.

In the tub, Neil’s head lolled back. He coughed once, twice, the sound wet– Andrew slid a hand over his mouth and one behind his head to straighten him up, but the small noises deteriorated rapidly into a coughing fit.

Outside, the far off knocking stopped.

“We could climb out the window,” Renee whispered.

“And go where?” Kevin demanded.

“Anywhere but a small, cramped room,” Allison hissed.

“We have numbers on our side,” Matt added, weak and unsure. Half of them had never fought for their lives before. The other half was either in a tub, compromised by the one in the tub, or unarmed.

“Get away from the door,” Andrew interrupted, sudden and vehement.

Neil continued attempting to regain his breath, his eyes squeezed shut and limbs half-drawn up.

They stepped back from the door.

Politely, the man outside knocked.

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up at [unkingly](https://unkingly.tumblr.com/) if you like! a thousand thanks to the followers that made this halloween special happen, and thanks to those reading it now. love you all -- please, stay safe!


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